“You need to be upside down too. I mean, to read that one. It’s a whole new genre.” Eli taps the mint tin in his hand against the upside-down paperback that Meg pretends to read while perched on the arm of Eli’s chair in the staff room.
The tin sketches a full loop in two staggering halves of a rotation between his fingertips.
“Genius? Obviously. Tragic, beyond doubt.”
Maz shuts the staff room door behind her and reaches the kettle in three controlled steps. She catches her fringe before it drops over her eyes and sweeps it back. Her eyes ping from Eli to Meg, to the floor, to the door, and back to Eli.
Meg lets a giggle fly as she watches the mint tin spin before throwing a quick glance at Maz.
“Downside up.”
After waiting until Eli looks up with his eyebrow quirked, Meg tips her head back while she crafts a laugh that sounds too glossy to be spontaneous, which doesn’t land on Eli so much as angle around him. The small tattoo of a bat wing under her jawline holds the weak light for a moment.
Maz’s gaze collides with Meg’s for less than a blink before Maz turns to the kitchenette.
Judge, jury, jester.
Eli sinks an elbow onto his knee as he spins the mint tin between his fingers. Each pinch to stop comes with a click; a push to shift its angle, a skitter; a roll to spin, a rattle.
Maz stands with her eyes on the countertop and keeps her hands not quite touching it.
You can almost hear the hiss.
She angles a pricked ear and a stiff shoulder in Eli’s direction.
He’s offering up secrets like cheap stunts. Don’t watch.
Maz switches the kettle on. A low rumble starts to thrum under her skin. Static crawls up her neck. A bubbling pressure builds up behind her ribs.
Her fingers, still stiff from clutching her phone and the mint tin outside, fumble with the mugs. The whole tower teeters as she manages to take one off the top. She tries to put the mug down on the counter, but it wobbles and tips onto its side. Every seemingly casual move brings her a clink closer to a clattering calamity.
She stops.
Find something other than a cheap ceramic that won’t shatter so easily.
Her hand reaches for her pocket, slides out her phone, and unlocks it. The last comment notification still burns on the screen.
Might as well.
She taps ‘View’.
***
Comment:
“At the seventh, speak your truth together, or the door forgets you. You want that seam lit, or do you still like the dark?”
– Weaver
***
She stares at the screen as her thumb presses on it so hard that it makes a little cracking sound.
The comment stays stuck to the top, stitched in like a flag. She rereads it, more slowly. The words don’t get any clearer on the second pass. She tries again. The third time only makes her pocket the phone.
Do you even know a Weaver? What seam? Seventh of what?
Meg’s laughter spikes with a sound that grinds into Maz’s ears.
Maz snaps her head up and turns.
“Meg.”
Meg doesn’t stop watching Maz, or laughing, though it becomes a little quieter each second.
A muffled jangling buzz rises from Eli’s pocket when his phone vibrates against his keys. He takes it out, and the screen’s cold glare shines on his face before the notification comes into his focus.
***
‘– [New comment on a story you follow: “Bind.Breathe.Stay”]’
***
The mint tin in his hand gives a click as the embossed branding dents under the pressure of his fingers.
Why am I getting this now? She wrote that ages ago. Oh, it’s an old post glitch. It’s nothing. It’s never nothing. I’ll worry about it later.
He swipes the alert away. His thumb doesn’t stop there as it carries on dismissing the others down the list, one by one, until it slips and taps where it shouldn’t.
A messaging thread opens. Maz’s lines and his own, all back and forth.
The words, though… They’re not right. Right?
He scrolls and stops before reaching its end.
I sort of… What is this? Is it hacked? But… Elysinth. I know that. That’s mine. No idea why I would choose that name. I’ll have to file that under ‘usernames are strange and personal and mean nothing’. Moving on.
His thumb slides down, going backwards through a digital blur of text. Forwards to the last message and back to the top of the thread.
It makes the same amount of sense. None. Almost. Also, somehow, all of it.
He looks up and meets Maz’s eyes across the room.
“Did we write this?”
Maz steps closer. Along the way, the air between them turns denser, and her pace slows down, as if she has to wade through it. A fine line rises above the arch of her brow, then a squint pulls it back down.
Why does it feel like you’re walking inside a thick cloud?
She drags the only other chair in the room over to him and sits to read with him.
***
➜ Messages
Elysinth: I still have the card you sneaked into my pocket. That never hit the records, did it?
Mazmire: Unlikely. We probably shouldn’t even talk about this right now. The more we remember, the more they’ll take, you know the rules. Apparently memory’s taxable.
***
The kettle’s boiling rattle grows louder.
Maz looks at the words through her narrowed eyes.
Memory’s taxable? Did you really write that? What card?
Eli tilts his head at the screen as the mint tin in his hand gives a stifled metallic creak.
This sounds private. Still, why would I message her via whatever this is and not just text?
As they stare at the words, their elbows move a little closer together and bridge the gap with the slightest of bumps. A static snap shocks them both and allows the thickening air between them to thin out.
Maz’s opposite hand jumps to Eli’s arm, where the snap just sparked.
What was that?
Eli fixes his eyes on an empty corner of the phone. His hand pinching the mint tin reaches to cover hers.
Old building. Loose wiring, I bet.
They return to reading as their hands drop and the heaviness in that sliver of space between them begins to build back up.
***
Elysinth: I was trying to memorise your handwriting in case the rest of it went missing. Do you think the Queen noticed us when you wrote my name with a heart on that last file?
Mazmire: Doubt it. Like she could see anything beyond what mattered to her or the throne. However, she did give us a whole word for once. If they wanted their rules kept, they should’ve followed their own well before Cron started showing up.
***
Maz reads the lines again.
You always dot his name with a heart. Is it that? What does a ‘Queen’ have to do with it? But… Pretty sure you never wrote ‘Elysinth’ anywhere.
Eli sits back, and the motion appears slower than logic allows.
Queen. Cron. Why do they sound like bad news? If there was a file, I should at least be able to remember that.
Meg watches them with furrowed brows from the arm of Eli’s chair. Her nails click on the paperback in her hand. She lets her elbow hang over the backrest, and her serpent cuff scrapes the top edge of the plastic.
Both Maz and Eli’s senses remain focused on the phone and the dense air that still weighs between their arms.
Meg lets her leg swing loose and catches the chair with a sound that passes for a kick. Neither of them reacts. She lifts the paperback and drops it on the floor. Nobody responds to her. She stares at the ceiling as Maz and Eli carry on reading.
***
Elysinth: Now we’re the paperwork. New gods might even be sorting them as we leave. I say, let them. They’ll lose us twice in the audit. If you want to return, say the word. There’s always room for an appeal. Unless we treat this as an undocumented holiday.
Mazmire: ‘Exile’ does have a fancy hotel name ring to it. No, I’m not going back, even if they find the good wine they suddenly misplaced and the Ferryman forgets his fee.
***
The final line Meg reads over Eli’s shoulder brings a sudden, rigid arrest to her spine. To prove she definitely wasn’t prying, she lifts her arms, uncurling them into a languid reach towards the ceiling, as if performing a morning stretch.
Eli turns to Maz.
“You never say ‘Ferryman’ unless you’re–”
Meg coughs beside him, and it sounds practised.
Maz doesn’t look at Meg and tries to laugh it off.
“I must have been drunk. I never…”
She glances at the boiling kettle.
Is there a password here somewhere? For what exactly? Nope. You’re imagining things. Are you?
Eli manages half a grin.
“Since when do you get drunk?” He aims to sound humorous, but his brows question his own sentence.
They return to the phone.
***
Elysinth: Call ‘truth’ and I’ll stop everything to follow, even if we’re forbidden to remember where.
Mazmire: If you get turned around, follow the noise and trust the squirrel. We don’t have to call the word for them. That part is ours.
***
The fluorescents overhead pop and flicker on and off like chewing on a secret.
Maz catches the whiff of a scent.
Stamp ink? Here? Don’t be silly.
A pipe beneath the floorboards clicks in a pattern. Eli taps the tin in reply.
Right. What am I reading here? What’s that supposed to mean? A riddle or instructions?
***
Elysinth: I can feel that we’re already slipping past the threshold. We’ll lose this connection soon. So, if forgetting comes, know that we’re at least bound to find each other. We’re still us. Half legend, half clerical blunder. All in.
Mazmire: All in. All ours. Still always.
***
Meg clears her throat, a sound like tearing linen, before she hops off the armrest and breezes past them.
“Enough, weirdos, back to work. The boss wants the till neat. No overtime. We’ve got pub after close.” She flicks a pen off the countertop, sending it in an arc. It hits the top of the microwave and clatters behind it. She turns to the door.
“First round’s on the microwave, then.”
The door swings shut behind her.
Eli lowers the phone and watches Maz’s attention drop to his hand.
Her eyes land on a burn scar, mirrored on the pads of his thumb and forefinger.
Have you seen that before? It looks like… he held a scorched card between them. Probably quite some time ago. Even if he did, what would’ve made him hold onto it that long to leave a mark? Why don’t you remember seeing it?
She glances up only to catch his gaze sliding over to the side of her neck.
He stares at a ribbon of silver skin that’s too smooth.
I don’t think I ever noticed that. When did that happen? Some sort of fabric? Could’ve been a necklace she wore so long it left a… No, no, I would’ve at least seen that. Is it a burn? No, it’s like something was… yanked off? I’ll file that under… nothing, and I’m… not moving on.
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